1603

Yeah, the collision/clipping is pretty iffy.

I’ll be curious to see how you solve some of the areas, one in particular is just a constant pain in the but from a leviathan or two, there’s a surprising way to deal with it, or the tougher way of constant avoidance.

1604

I’ve been a little oblique in referencing it, but I may have seen the spots you’re talking about. I definitely ran into some reaper trouble, including a couple that breathe fire!!! That was a nasty surprise. But I definitely ran from them, if you can confront and defeat them I’m not sure I’m up to the task. While they do continue to try to pursue me, it’s fairly easy in the Prawn to just kind of bounce around and escape them. They aren’t as persistent as I feared they would be. Just nasty tempered.

Speaking of which, I have had a lot of fun playing with physics in the Prawn. With the grappling hook, I can now combine maneuvers of Hulk leaping and Spiderman swinging to zip around the environment. It’s a lot of fun!

1605

With the grapple the Prawn effectively lets you zip around anywhere, so the Cyclops just becomes a mobile base. Sounds like you’re more or less set for exploring anywhere.

1606

What Hougan said. They had real problems with it and didn’t patch them all out. For a while I could repeat the bug where you exit the cyclops but are still in it, with that same oxygen countdown, etc. For me, moving far enough away somehow triggered out of the mesh and I would fall back into the game and to the floor of the ocean and take a bit of damage doing so.

1607

The spiderman phase of the prawn, especially with thermal power regen and extended jump, is the BEST of the prawn. I loved sometimes putting in two grappling arms and swinging around. But then you can’t punch ghosty when he comes too close.

If you replay, your challenge is to get the Cyclops to the end game location. Very doable, just a lot of scraping and repairing.

1608

I don’t know if I’ll replay Subnautica, at least not anytime soon. I think a lot of the pleasure I’ve gotten from the game has been figuring out how to survive and prosper there, plus of course all the fun exploration and discovery. I have a feeling I’ll want to try out Below Zero before too long, even if it does hit a lot of the same beats. Plus I have the new Outer Wilds DLC to try out.

i'mswamped

It’s been a great ride, though, definitely a top tier experience for me. I don’t think I have a lot left in the game, I may even be able to finish tonight - I’m on my last real build effort. At least I think I am, I guess the game could have another curveball to throw my way. I’ll update with where things turn out.

1609

Yeah I think I’m on my last session of this tonight and… well, it’s remarkable. Again. Somehow.

1610

Holy shit I missed this. Fuck. Off to buy it.

1611

And it’s done! I have successfully, you know, succeeded with the thing! And a happy ending and everything. Looks like having done it took about 48 hours start to finish, with a fair amount of flailing punctuated by the occasional ‘aha!’ and flurry of activity. As others pointed out, there’s a little shift in the game once you stop getting regular radio updates and start needing to find your own way in the world. I didn’t really pick up on that very quickly but rather kept doing what I had been doing, exploring at my leisure and building on to my base. Which was fun, so I wasn’t in a huge rush to move on - but once I buckled down and moved onward and inward, as it were, things sped up again.

Also in retrospect, mine was a fairly peaceful and non-confrontational playthrough. Not that I didn’t run into my share of creatures that were quite happy to take a bite out of me or even swallow me whole, just that for my part I turned and ran when I saw them. And that appears to be a valid approach, it got me through the game. I even built a stasis rifle at one point and then … just never used it. Probably would have come in handy during one of those reaper attacks on my Cyclops, had I stopped to think about it. Lots of other offensive options like torpedoes for my submarines that I just never invested time and materials into. Why bother? Surviving intact is the best revenge.

I did appreciate that the game skewed a bit to the easy, or maybe I should say non-punishing side of things. It doesn’t take long to reach a stable place where your physical needs are met, with a safe spot to keep your stuff and steady supply of food and water. At that point, without those constant needs poking you forward you’re free to make your own goals and explore more or less at your leisure. Even disregard the plot entirely, I imagine. While you do get an infection fairly early on, it doesn’t seem to have any real gameplay consequences, though I guess it may have a timer and just kill you later? Though it doesn’t seem like the kind of game that would do that to you.

But overall yeah, really great experience and I’m very glad I played. I’m definitely going to be trying Below Zero at some point, but I’ll take a breather with some other stuff first. Big thumbs up!

1612

It does not.

This is the rare game I got 100% on achievements. I did have to reload my final save and do a couple things to get that last few, but still.

1613

You played it the way many of us did, mostly pacifist. They actually intended things that way as a break from the typical, “shoot/kill everything in your way,” approach to survival games. And I found myself enjoying it!

I honestly wish they had DLC’d the original game instead of spinning off to Below Zero. It’s different, and you’ll have a repeat of a lot of the things you did in Subnautica. I didn’t enjoy it as much but it was still a good game, the experience was kind of beaten to the punch with the first game. Like the first time you’re in pitch blackness underwater and hear that leviathan scream. God that shit was scary.

1614

Yes, that’s how I felt about it. I don’t mind playing games with combat but I do also appreciate games that offer alternatives, or at least allow you to opt out. I’ve no doubt there are folks who make it their mission to rid the planet of reapers but I’d just rather see what’s out there.

I guess it’s kind of funny to me to discover that what felt like individual choices were probably prodded into me by the game and its developers. I was thinking that the Cyclops was probably intended to be a mobile base, but I didn’t really like using it all that much so I just figured, ‘hey what if just build another base down in the Lost River?’ like I just came up with that idea. But it’s pretty clear in retrospect that this was the best move I could have made, at least for how I play. Considering I ended up having to come back to the base at the end to farm a bit more, it paid off.

I guess the mark of a good game, similar to that of a good book or movie or whatever, is that when it’s over you’re a little sad that you’re done with it. But I’d much rather feel that way than exhausted that the game had really run its course halfway through and just going through the motions at the end. And I can always replay later as a bunch of you have done. And then there’s the sequel, and Breathedge which kind of looks to be a kind of Subnautica in space. I guess that’s another mark of a good game, that it spawns imitators. Have to see how good they are.

1615

I played it entirely pacifist, except for that one bit I mentioned. In the Lost River (if that’s the name) where you generally build a final base but there’s a leviathan constantly in the area, I finally just grappled onto him and killed him with my drill. Then did the same to the one down the big tunnel that leads to the endgame stuff. It was a quality of life improvement, well worth the five or ten minutes it took each time.

1616

I went into Breathedge thinking the same and was dissapointed, only played 3 hours according to steam. it doesn’t have the same immersion (doh) of being underwater and the game humour style got old real fast for me. I should probably give it another chance someday.

1617

Did “Below Zero” leave early access and I missed it? If so, are there any DLC plans?

1618

Yes! If you want more of the same with some added stuff it’s a nice game, altho quite a bit shorter than the original. I liked it a lot.

Dunno if there are plans for a DLC, Below Zero’s ending leaves it open for possibilities but more for a full sequel i guess.

1619

Was it you who disliked the amount of ambient world combat in The Witcher 3? I’ve not played it myself but I only ask because that resonated with me as someone who generally tires of that kind of thing. Nothing against combat but in big open world games it can feel more like busywork than an interesting or entertaining obstacle. Breath of the Wild did the same to me. Go away bats, blobs and bokobs, I just want to explore and breath all this space in!

Yeah, I think this is one of the best things about Subnautica: the almost invisible hand of the developers steering you. The ‘gating’ is very natural. It’s just great design and, yeah, the result is you own your decision-making based on your own discoveries rather than what you’re told to do. See also: Outer Wilds.

Absolutely this. I will say however that I was definitely ready by the end of Subnautica! All the back and forth with materials grated on me in the last third of the game (hence my love of the Cyclops–I took it all the way to the bottom!).

Below Zero is good but it’s not something I’d necessarily recommend unless you’re really itching for more Subnautica and even then its overshadowed by the original. I enjoyed it but was also disappointed in some ways. It’s a weird one.

I’m hoping to give The Long Dark a go soon, which I’ve been threatening to do for ages.

Speaking of which, this video is great:

https://youtu.be/rlj0JK-CDuQ

1620

Just watched it, that video is awesome. I should have understood the definition of sublime a lot more but she nails it in reference to not just those to games but many others. It’s part of that feeling we chase in some games, the thrill, the fear, the awesomeness of it all.

1621

Yes, that was absolutely my primary complaint with The Witcher 3, that the environment doesn’t make any sense with all the enemies. You step off a trail, or hell wander along it, and you can’t go 10 steps without being beset by wolves or zombies or whatever. It’s kind of insane. The world is so good in that game, I wish they’d had a little more faith in it, just left some downtime to actually travel through it and enjoy it without having to draw your sword so frequently.

Anyway, I too watched the video and really enjoyed it, nice find!

1622

In my forever pitch to get more people to try Long Dark, I will mention here that another update just landed this week for that game on the story side =)